“Let’s not talk about it,” Juliana said. In the kitchen, she started cooking bacon; she turned on the small white plastic Emerson radio which Frank had given her on her birthday. “I’ll fix you something to eat.” She dialed, trying to find some light, pleasant music.
“Look at this,” Joe said. In the living room, he sat on the bed, his small suitcase beside him; he had opened it and brought out a ragged, bent book which showed signs of much handling. He grinned at Juliana. “Come here. You know what somebody says? This man—” He indicated the book. “This is very funny. Sit down.” He took hold of her arm, drew her down beside him. “I want to read to you. Suppose they had won. What would it be like? We don’t have to worry; this man has done all the thinking for us.” Opening the book, Joe began turning pages slowly. “The British Empire would control all Europe. All the Mediterranean. No Italy at all. No Germany, either. Bobbies and those funny little soldiers in tall fur hats, and the king as far as the Volga.”
In a low voice, Juliana said, “Would that be so bad?”
“You read the book?”
“No,” she admitted, peering to see the cover. She had heard about it, though; a lot of people were reading it. “But Frank and I—my former husband and I—often talked about how it would have been if the Allies had won the war.”
Joe did not seem to hear her; he was staring down at the copy of
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy
. “And in this,” he went on, “you know how it is that England wins? Beats the Axis?”
She shook her head, feeling the growing tension of the man beside her. His chin now had begun to quiver; he licked his lips again and again, dug at his scalp…when he spoke his voice was hoarse.
“He has Italy betray the Axis,” Joe said.
“Oh,” she said.
“Italy goes over to the Allies. Joins the Anglo-Saxons and opens up what he calls the ‘soft underbelly’ of Europe. But that’s natural for him to think that. We all know the cowardly Italian Army that ran every time they saw the British. Drinking vino. Happy-go-lucky, not made for fighting. This fellow—” Joe closed the book, turned it around to study the back cover. “Abendsen. I don’t blame him. He writes this fantasy, imagines how the world would be if the Axis had lost. How else could they lose except by Italy being a traitor?” His voice grated. “The Duce—he was a clown; we all know that.”
“I have to turn the bacon.” She slid away from him and hurried back to the kitchen.
Following after her, still carrying the book, Joe went on, “And the U.S. comes in. After it licks the Japs. And after the war, the U.S. and Britain divide the world. Exactly like Germany and Japan did in reality.”
Juliana said, “Germany, Japan, and Italy.”
He stared at her.
“You left out Italy.” She faced him calmly. Did you forget, too? she said to herself. Like everybody else? The little empire in the Middle East…the musical-comedy New Rome.
Presently she served him a platter of bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade, coffee. He ate readily.
“What did they serve you in North Africa?” she asked as she, too, seated herself.
Joe said, “Dead donkey.”
“That’s hideous.”
With a twisted grin, Joe said, “Asino Morte. The bully beef cans had the initials AM stamped on them. The Germans called it Alter Mann. Old Man.” He resumed his rapid eating.
I would like to read this, Juliana thought as she reached to take the book from under Joe’s arm. Will he be here that long? The book had grease on it; pages were torn. Finger marks all over it. Read by truck drivers on the long haul, she thought. In the one-arm beaneries late at night…I’ll bet you’re a slow reader, she thought. I’ll bet you’ve been poring over this book for weeks, if not months.
Opening the book at random, she read:
…now in his old age he viewed tranquillity, domain such as the ancients would have coveted but not comprehended, ships from the Crimea to Madrid, and all the Empire, all with the same coin, speech, flag. The great old Union Jack dipping from sunrise to sunset: it had been fulfilled at last, that about the sun and the flag.
“The only book I carry around,” Juliana said, “isn’t actually a book; it’s the oracle, the
I Ching
—Frank got me hooked on it and I use it all the time to decide. I never let it out of my sight. Ever.” She closed the copy of
The Grasshopper
. “Want to see it? Want to use it?”
“No,” Joe said.
Resting her chin on her folded arms on the table surface and gazing at him sideways, she said, “Have you moved in here permanently? And what are you up to?” Brooding over the insults, the slanders. You petrify me, she thought, with your hatred of life. But—you have something. You’re like a little animal, not important but smart. Studying his limited, clever dark face she thought, How could I ever have imagined you as younger than me? But even that’s true, your childishness; you are still the baby brother, worshiping your two older brothers and your Major Pardi and General Rommel, panting and sweating to break loose and get the Tommies. Did they actually garrote your brothers with loops of wire? We heard that, the atrocity stories and photos released after the war…She shuddered. But the British commandos were brought to trial and punished long ago.
The radio had ceased playing music; there seemed to be a news program, racket of shortwave from Europe. The voice faded and became garbled. A long pause, nothing at all. Just silence. Then the Denver announcer, very clear, close by. She reached to turn the dial, but Joe stopped her hand.
“…news of Chancellor Bormann’s death shocked a stunned Germany which had been assured as recently as yesterday…”
She and Joe jumped to their feet.
“…all Reichs stations canceled scheduled programs and listeners heard the solemn strains of the chorus of the SS Division
Das Reich
raised in the anthem of the Partei, the
Horst Wessel Lied
. Later, in Dresden, where the acting Partei Secretary and chiefs of the Sicherheitsdienst, the national security police which replaced the Gestapo following…”
Joe turned the volume up.
“…reorganization of the government at the instigation of the late Reichsfuhrer Himmler, Albert Speer and others, two weeks of official mourning were declared, and already many shops and businesses have closed, it was reported. As yet no word has come as to the expected convening of the Reichstag, the formal parliament of the Third Reich, whose approval is required…”
“It’ll be Heydrich,” Joe said.
“I wish it would be that big blond fellow, that Schirach,” she said. “Christ, so he finally died. Do you think Schirach has a chance?”
“No,” Joe said shortly.
“Maybe there’ll be a civil war now,” she said. “But those guys are so old now, Goring and Goebbels—all those old Party boys.”
The radio was saying, “…reached at his retreat in the Alps near Brenner…”
Joe said, “This’ll be Fat Hermann.”
“…said merely that he was grief-stricken by the loss not only of a soldier and patriot and faithful Partei Leader, but also, as he has said many times over, of a personal friend, whom, one will recall, he backed in the interregnum dispute shortly after the war when it appeared for a time that elements hostile to Herr Bormann’s ascension to supreme authority—”
Juliana shut the radio off.
“They’re just babbling,” she said. “Why do they use words like that? Those terrible murderers are talked about as if they were like the rest of us.”
“They are like us,” Joe said. He reseated himself and once more ate. “There isn’t anything they’ve done we wouldn’t have done if we’d been in their places. They saved the world from Communism. We’d be living under Red rule now, if it wasn’t for Germany. We’d be worse off.”
“You’re just talking,” Juliana said. “Like the radio. Babbling.”
“I been living under the Nazis,” Joe said. “I know what it’s like. Is that just talk, to live twelve, thirteen years—longer than that—almost fifteen years? I got a work card from OT; I worked for Organization Todt since 1947, in North Africa and the U.S.A. Listen—” He jabbed his finger at her. “I got the Italian genius for earthworks; OT gave me a high rating. I wasn’t shoveling asphalt and mixing concrete for the autobahns. I was helping design. Engineer. One day Doctor Todt came by and inspected what our work crew did. He said to me, ‘You got good hands.’ That’s a big moment, Juliana. Dignity of labor; they’re not talking only words. Before them, the Nazis, everyone looked down on manual jobs; myself, too. Aristocratic. The Labor Front put an end to that. I seen my own hands for the first time.” He spoke so swiftly that his accent began to take over; she had trouble understanding him. “We all lived out there in the woods, in Upper State New York, like brothers. Sang songs. Marched to work. Spirit of the war, only rebuilding, not breaking down. Those were the best days of all, rebuilding after the war—fine, clean, long-lasting rows of public buildings block by block, whole new downtown, New York and Baltimore. Now of course that work’s past. Big cartels like New Jersey Krupp and Sohnen running the show. But that’s not Nazi; that’s just old European powerful. Worse, you hear? Nazis like Rommel and Todt a million times better men than industrialists like Krupp and bankers, all those Prussians; ought to have been gassed. All those gentlemen in vests.”
But, Juliana thought, those gentlemen in vests are in forever. And your idols, Rommel and Doctor Todt; they just came in after hostilities, to clear the rubble, build the autobahns, start industry humming. They even let the Jews live, lucky surprise—amnesty so the Jews could pitch in. Until ’49, anyhow…and then good-bye Todt and Rommel, retired to graze.
Don’t I know? Juliana thought. Didn’t I hear all about it from Frank? You can’t tell me anything about life under the Nazis; my husband was—is—a Jew. I know that Doctor Todt was the most modest, gentle man that ever lived; I know all he wanted to do was provide work—honest, reputable work—for the millions of bleak-eyed, despairing American men and women picking through the ruins after the war. I know he wanted to see medical plans and vacation resorts and adequate housing for everyone, regardless of race; he was a builder, not a thinker…and in most cases he managed to create what he had wanted—he actually got it. But…
A preoccupation, in the back of her mind, now rose decidedly. “Joe. This
Grasshopper
book; isn’t it banned in the East Coast?”
He nodded.
“How could you be reading it, then?” Something about it worried her. “Don’t they still shoot people for reading—”
“It depends on your racial group. On the good old armband.”
That was so. Slavs, Poles, Puerto Ricans, were the most limited as to what they could read, do, listen to. The Anglo-Saxons had it much better; there was public education for their children, and they could go to libraries and museums and concerts. But even so…
The Grasshopper
was not merely classified; it was forbidden, and to everyone.
Joe said, “I read it in the toilet. I hid it in a pillow. In fact, I read it
because
it was banned.”
“You’re very brave,” she said.
Doubtfully he said, “You mean that sarcastically?”
“No.”
He relaxed a little. “It’s easy for you people here; you live a safe, purposeless life, nothing to do, nothing to worry about. Out of the stream of events, left over from the past; right?” His eyes mocked her.
“You’re killing yourself,” she said, “with cynicism. Your idols got taken away from you one by one and now you have nothing to give your love to.” She held his fork toward him; he accepted it. Eat, she thought. Or give up even the biological processes.
As he ate, Joe nodded at the book and said, “That Abendsen lives around here, according to the cover. In Cheyenne. Gets perspective on the world from such a safe spot, wouldn’t you guess? Read what it says; read it aloud.”
Taking the book, she read the back part of the jacket. “He’s an ex-service man. He was in the U.S. Marine Corps in World War Two, wounded in England by a Nazi Tiger tank. A sergeant. It says he’s got practically a fortress that he writes in, guns all over the place.” Setting the book down, she said, “And it doesn’t say so here, but I heard someone say that he’s almost a sort of paranoid; charged barbed wire around the place, and it’s set in the mountains. Hard to get to.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Joe said, “to live like that, after writing that book. The German bigwigs hit the roof when they read it.”
“He was living that way before; he wrote the book there. His place is called—” She glanced at the book jacket. “The High Castle. That’s his pet name for it.”
“They won’t get him,” Joe said, chewing rapidly. “He’s on the lookout. Smart.”
She said, “I believe he’s got a lot of courage to write that book. If the Axis had lost the war, we’d be able to say and write anything we wanted, like we used to; we’d be one country and we’d have a fair legal system, the same one for all of us.”
To her surprise, he nodded reasonably to that.
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “What do you believe? What is it you want? You defend those monsters, those freaks who slaughtered the Jews, and then you—” Despairing, she caught hold of him by the ears; he blinked in surprise and pain as she rose to her feet, tugging him up with her.